Rev. Bill Gillespie

Interview with Rev. Bill Gillespie Leicester, N.C. Conducted by Stephen Cain Tuesday, Aug. 4, 1998

(Tape 1, Side A)

Cain: Interview, 10 a.m. Tuesday, August 4, 1998. You and Riva, your wife, went to high school together?

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: Sweethearts at

Gillespie: 16 years old.

Cain: And how old were you when you got married?

Gillespie: 20 and 21.

Cain: 20 and 21. Did you have eyes for anyone else during that time?

Gillespie: No sir! (laughing)

Cain: And she's a witness, too. (The interview took place at the kitchen table. Riva was cleaning vegetables in the kitchen sink).

Gillespie: Oh I might have looked at 'em, but as far as really having a concern for 'em, no. No. No.

Cain: My wife and I started dating when we were juniors in high school, and it was sort of a love-hate relationship that went on for seven years 'till we got married. Then we made up for lost time. I'll tell you a little about what I want to do, and that's to look at some different sort of issue areas such as the importance of family, and the old homeplace, and religion, and mountain values, and stereotypes that people have, and then to get into the sense of things that you see are changing. And I also want to ask you a little bit about the church, because that's kind of interesting. But first of all, and this is a question of how people identify themselves: Oh sure, an American, a Christian, a man and all of the rest of that. I was brought up in Tennessee as a child but really came of age in Michigan, so I'm a Yankee. That may change. There are some people that are city folks; some people are country folks. Are you a mountain person?

Gillespie: Yessir.

Cain: Okay. What's that mean, that you're different in some ways from the lowlander?

Gillespie: Well really, being from western North Carolina, living here all my life, and it is a mountainous area, and that is the reason, I guess, that I call myself a mountain person.

Cain: But it's pride too? Pride in place?

Gillespie: To a certain extent, but appreciation more than pride.

Cain: Ah, pride is ... okay, I understand. Pride is very special thing, have to be careful about that.

Gillespie: (laugh)

Cain: But that's not pride in your accomplishment. That's just proud of the creation around you.

Gillespie: That's true.

Cain: It's beautiful.

Gillespie: That's true.

Cain: And you like the beauty.

Gillespie: Yessir.

Cain: That's known as a leading question. I'm shocked at that.

Gillespie: That's okay.

Cain: Your ancestors, tell me about when they came to this area, as best as you.

Gillespie: It would be in the, at least in the early 1800s because the house that's still standing that my wife and myself started housekeeping in was erected by or before 18 and 60, so I would say very early 1800s.

Cain: Farmers?

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: What part of Sandy Mush did they.

Gillespie: This is North Turkey Creek, but it's what they call Sandy Mush Township, but as far as the creek,

it's North Turkey Creek.

Cain: I didn't know how much the different creeks were sort of apart versus.

Gillespie: Now I don't know if you could call it Sandy Mush community. You'd have to call it Sandy Mush Township, township. That's the way it has always been. At the courthouse, it is like that.

Riva Gillespie: This road up here is what they call North Turkey Creek.

Cain: Or sometimes just North Creek.

Gillespie: Right. Yeah, yeah.

Cain: I'm picking up slowly. Your folks came to the area, you think, in the early 1800s.

Gillespie: Yessir.

Cain: Farmers.

Gillespie: Yessir. I have a farming background.

Cain: Tell me a little about, well, there are also a lot of people married, families connected, and

Gillespie: Well, yes. You know, the means of travel was not very good, so you didn't golOO miles to find a girl to marry.

Cain: Oh sure, but your families, going back, are all sort of married across, related in some direction or other, or not?

Gillespie: I really don't know how to answer that. In what sense do you mean?

Cain: Well, no. It seemed like the Surretts, and the Ducketts, and the Kings, and all. I didn't mean in any sort of incest way, but intermarriage. It might be a third cousin that you might end up being related to, what, half the families?

Gillespie: Yes, I know what you're saying. Some of the folks you have mentioned, they have pretty much married within the families to a certain extent, but, I could say that to a certain extent of ours, but only to a certain extent. Now my dad and his brother married two sisters, so that would make their children and my parents' children double first cousins. That's as much as I would know.

Cain: I wasn't talking about the stereotype of the mountains. I was just saying: You've got, what, a dozen old families, or whatever the number is.

Gillespie: Yep. Yep.

Cain: And somewhere along the line.

Gillespie: I know what you're really saying.

Cain: You don't want to insult a Duckett because, you talk to a Surrett and insult a Duckett, but that Surrett is got a kin to the Duckett somewhere back there.

Gillespie: Yes. I know a community in Madison County, and they have a saying that, if you don't know that person, you can call them one of three names: Price, Crimmins, or, I forgot the other, but anyhow, three different names, and if you don't get their name, you'll get a relative's name, you understand?

Cain: Sure, okay. Do you have any sort of family stories that got handed down, anecdotes?

Gillespie: Well nothing more meaningful, I guess, than my great grandfather was a Civil War veteran and was, from all reports, was a great Christian, had a tremendous amount of faith in the Lord.

Cain: He was a Confederate?

Gillespie: He was a Confederate. He fought for the South. Because the brick in the house that he was building was homemade brick, and, we feel, possibly slaves made the brick. We don't know for sure, but as I said, he was a man, according to all reports, of great faith and, if he was going to be in a battle, the story was passed down, this particular fellow said, "I want to be close to this gentleman because I feel the Lord will protect him, and if I'm close to him, maybe he'll protect me too."

Cain: Ah. What was his name?

Gillsepie: James Adolphus Gillespie.

Cain: Adolphus: A-D-O-L

Gillespie: Adolfus: A-D-O-L-F, I guess. Anyway, I can take you to the cemetery and show you the tombstones of he and his wife.

Cain: And that are in the

Gillespie: North Turkey Creek Beulah Cemetery.

Cain: I'll go up there and take a look. Tell me a little bit about yourself growing up.

Gillespie: Well, I have an older sister, a younger sister. Then, of course, we were all farm family. We had some hard times, and some good times, but we know about the hardships of life. We certainly do.

Cain: It's hard to make a living as a farmer here?

Gillespie: Well, it wasn't at that time. When we were kids, because that was what most everybody come into at that time, with the exception of one or possibly two families, everybody made their living from the farm when we were kids. Of course that's a different story now.

Cain: Right. I mean it's just not all that economical.

Gillespie: No, no. You can, I have a fairly decent farm, and there is no way our two youngest boys could make a living, a total living by farming the farm. So farming now is a second occupation.

Cain: Except for those that are big and, you know, buy up or rent a whole bunch of tobacco leases and then bring in a Mexican crew.

Gillespie: Yeah. Yeah.

Cain: That's not the old way.

Gillespie: No sir. No sir. The old way was a family. You did it by family work. Even when our two oldest children were home and until they finished high school, and then furthered their education and got a job, we did our farming, as a rule, within the family.

Cain: Charles, where is he now?

Gillespie: He's an employee of Carolina Power & Light.

Cain: And he lives in

Gillespie: Newfound Community, 10 miles away.

Cain: Gaylen

Gillespie: She lives.

Cain: That's a her?

Gillespie: Yes. She lives in the Wright Creek area 20-odd miles from here, maybe, 20 or more miles. She works with the Buncombe County Health Department as a secretary.

Cain: Do you see her pretty often?

Gillespie: Well.

Cain: Or not as often?

Gillespie: Fairly much. We've had company from Virginia and had a wedding in the family, and so she's been around real close for three or four days.

Cain: And Harold?

Gillespie: He lives a mile down the road.

Cain: What does he do?

Gillespie: He works in a machine shop as a machinist, MCI, make airplane parts, I believe, for the government.

Cain: And Jonathan?

Gillespie: He works at Perfection Gear.

Cain: And you farm as well as the church, or you're helping who?

Gillespie: Well, I guess you could say as far as my ministry, it's bi-vocational. Now that means that I've always had an occupation pastoring a small church and they've sort of supplemented. And as far as the farm, I raised my family by farming until I got 62 years old, and, now I draw some Social Security, and I do enough to supplement that with some other things that, some investments or whatever.

Cain: I'll go through several things and then I want to talk about the church and the community.

Gillespie: Okay.

Cain: And this is, the importance of kin. I know a lot of the world out there, your kids end up going away, and they scatter, and the family is the nuclear family, and it seems that an awful lot of family is falling by the wayside.

Gilllespie: We haven't, and I hope we won't. I've been close not only to my immediate family but my cousins, you know, and we have what we call the Gillespie Reunion in September, and it goes right back to this James Adolfus, and as many as we can get to come, we meet and have a covered dish.

Cain: Where's that held?

Gillespie: Down at the Leicester Community Center.

Cain: How many people are likely to come in from year to year.

Gillespie: Of course it varies. Not as many as we hope, about 30.

Cain: And the reason for that?

Gillespie: Well to sort of keep family ties, I suppose.

Cain: In terms of, certainly in years past, family ties were really important to a community because there

wasn't much money, and it was family and neighbor that sort of kept everyone's life together.

Gillespie: Yes. We're still, as a community, I think we're still pretty closely knit as far as borrowing and loaning, swapping help, even going helping if we're not asked, if we see a fellow that's in need sometimes, and we can spare the time or arrange the time, we'll help.

Cain: So that's both kin and neighbor?

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: Is it that way as much outside the mountains?

Gillespie: I really don't know that much, but from what I've been told, I'm going to use the terms "up north," you don't know your nextdoor neighbor.

Cain: I know what you mean. I happen to know my neighbors because that's part of who I am, but you're right.

Gillespie: I do want to say something about what happened in June the 4th, I believe it was, of '94. Lightning struck.

Cain: On a Sunday.

Gillespie: Uh huh. You've heard

Cain: Go ahead. Go ahead. I want to hear it. I want to hear it.

Gillespie: You heard about it. Struck one barn and set it afire and another, the oldest barn that my grandfather had put together with wooden pegs, was near that. Of course it burned both barns. The fire department, only by the fire department getting here saved the third building from being burned. And if we hadn't had a fire department, I'd have lost at least seven buildings, with all the contents, or most all the contents. We could have gotten some out, you know. But the thing that is so amazing. The folks of Sandy Mush, the church people of Chestnut Grove, Jones Valley, Ebeneezer, and Big Sandy Methodist had a meeting, and it was said, we want to try to help Bill build his barns back. And so we were aware of that, we did all we could to have the material on hand and have things arranged and all plans, and we met on a Saturday before the 4th of July, we had 30 men and boys, counting my own boys. That morning we had 20 ladies and girls that either came and brought food or assisted in serving, and then, that was on Saturday. And the 4th of July was on Monday, and we even had some men and boys that came back and helped it. And so that was one of the amazing things. We had a record of 16 different churches that gave some assistance in some way, either food, labor, finances, whatever, and I'm sure that there's maybe one or two we didn't have a record of. So that speaks highly of the community and of the people.

Cain: That made you feel pretty good.

Gillespie: Yessir, and it has all reasons to make me feel good.

Cain: In times past, oh, 75 years ago, the typical way to build a house, you cut the lumber on your own place.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: And there would be a working, and the people would come in.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: And the barn the same way. As time went on, you might hire a carpenter to help you. You'd do part of it and he'd help you, but it was done as a community thing. But then I gather people started to have to do public work on the outside. They didn't have as much time, and that really passed. You still might be neighborly in various ways but what happened with you was pretty unusual.

Gillespie: Very unusual.

Cain: It was like something from the way things used to be.

Gillespie: Well, that's right. It was a learning experience for me and even especially from some of the younger boys and men that had never, you know, participated in anything of that nature. And also it taught me that you can have something today and tomorrow it's all gone. It's in ashes, or whatever. And I appreciate what I have, but it's taught me I can have it today and not have it tomorrow.

Cain: There is some Scripture on that, too.

Gillespie: There is plenty of that. The man Job of the Old Testament. You know the story, I'm sure.

Cain: I know the story very well.

Gillespie: It put something in my heart that made me want to help people even more that I've always or think I've always had a heart to try to help people, but I've been on church-building missions since then that I might not have went on had it not been for that.

Cain: How long have you been at Jones Valley?

Gillespie: Seven years the last time. Five years previous.

Cain: Were you the pastor there when the flood came through in '77?

Gillespie: No, I was pastor from '71 until '76.

Cain: (laugh)

Gillespie: And the flood came in November, '77.

Cain: And back again.

Gillespie: I've been there seven years this past July, I believe it was. Those dates ...

Cain: That's okay. I was looking at the marble plaque on the church and talking with people, and there was a lot of community that went into the rebuilding that church.

Gillespie: Certainly. Not only the community but outside of the community. The Baptist men of North Carolina put together three groups of men, volunteers, and they came from all across the state, as far away as Wilmington, Statesville, Raleigh, Durham, where ever. One group came and worked a week, volunteered. They went home. Another group came and did the same. And then the last group was from the French Broad Baptist Association in Madison County, mainly in Madison County, some of the churches were in Buncombe. They came. So they built the church by the material being on hand or coming as they needed it. Within three weeks, beside the trim work, which is totally amazing.

Cain: And the stone work is beautiful.

Gillespie: We hired the stone work done.

Cain: The men gathered the stones?

Gillespie: Yes. The blueprint was given to us, plus numbers and numbers of dollars.

Cain: I notice the church is built a couple hundred feet up the hill so it would kind of take a Biblical flood.

Gillespie: That's right. That's true. Well, Fay Ferguson donated the property for the rebuilding.

Cain: The name "Jones Valley." (Fay Ferguson and her brother, Candler Jones, own and work a farm adjacent to the church).

Gillespie: I suppose that because the Jones possibly, maybe, I'm not sure, whether they donated the first property or not, I'm not sure, but I'm not really sure how that it came about as far as the name, but I know the Jones have done a great contribution as far as the church building, keeping it going, finances, attendance, and so forth.

Cain: With your barn, the churches in the area all came together.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: Ecumenical.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: Is that pretty typical of the churches, are the churches sort of together, or is it.

Gillespie: Well, our church belongs to what you call the French Broad Baptist Association, and there are 60 churches that belong to that association, and every church is not as actively involved as they should be in a number of things, but its an association and we meet once a year as an association. As far as a couple of nights -- it happens to be this Thursday night and Friday night ~ and we'll have a couple of meetings in between. They also do church building as far as assistance. They help in disaster relief. We have pastoral life meetings, things of that nature.

Cain: What is the size of the congregation at Jones Valley, roughly?

Gillespie: Well, attendance is in the 20s, very small. We had 38 on Sunday, but we had several visitors. Our membership is probably in the 50s. Now some of those members live out of community and have not moved their membership. Some are inactive, as that would be with any church, I'm sure.

Cain: As you look at a map, there are an awful lot of churches around.

Gillespie: Certainly.

Cain: Some of them like Payne's Chapel no longer meet. That's been I don't know how many years.

Gillespie: I think the main reason for so many churches in Sandy Mush community would be, transportation would be one thing. Back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, you walked or you rode a mule or you put your family in a wagon. I think that would possibly be the number one reason for ...

Cain: The number. Also, I was reading a history of mountain religions that actually focused an awful lot on the non-denominational holiness churches that had sprung up. The only one I saw was when I was driving from here to Marshall, I saw one non-denominational. Most of the churches now seem to be Baptist or Methodist.

Gillespie: Yes. That's the two main religious organizations. There are more Baptists than there are any other particular religion. Methodist would be second, not only in Sandy Mush but Leicester, possibly in Asheville, I'm not for sure in Asheville.

Cain: I do know the Methodist circuit riders were really active in the mountains in the 18th, 19th Centuries.

Gillespie: Well, my great grandfather that I had mentioned was a Methodist. He was not a minister, but he had a little Methodist church built up the road here. It was active and survived for several years but when, say he and another elderly man by the name of John Wells got disabled or deceased, it finally, you know, had to close the doors, and sold the property, yeah, sold the property.

Cain: I was looking at the Census reports over the years. Sandy Mush had lost population every 10 years until 1980. It started to go up again. And there was a time during the Depression where the kids who had gone away to jobs came back because at least you could get fed on the farm. But up until this wave of newcomers moving out, the population has been going down.

Gillespie: Almost, we'll say 90-odd to almost 100 percent of the property that's sold in this community is bought by out-of-state people.

Cain: And it changes the complexion of the community.

Gillespie: Yes, it does. They're not, many of them are not as church-minded or doesn't evaluate, or value, rather, church attendance, church activity, as much as the original.

Cain: Got it.

Gillespie: You see, we have church cemeteries. Some churches have family cemeteries at which tradition, the little church here at Beulah, I'd like to call it our annual homecoming, this past Sunday, they met and had a covered dish meal and decorated the graves and, you know, and that happens once a year with almost every church in our area.

Cain: When was the decoration for Jones Valley?

Gillespie: It will be next Sunday, the second Sunday in August, always the second Sunday in August of each year.

Cain: It's pretty well taken care of.

Gillespie: Yes, yes. The cemetery and the church. The building itself, we try to keep it up. We even have folks that doesn't attend church that still has an interest in helping keep the cemetery clean and kept up because of their ancestors who are buried there.

Cain: Tell me about, a little bit about when the government wanted to put a nuclear waste dump.

Gillespie: Oh, ho ho ho!

Cain: Golly!

Gillespie: Well, I'll tell you. We were upset, and we tried to come up with all the legitimate reasons that they shouldn't that we could think of. So, we opposed it with all of our might.

Cain: It would have killed the community?

Gillespie: Oh sure, sure. There would be no way the community could still be the community if that thing had gone through. Hopefully it never goes through. But if it had gone through, you know, here's your churches, here's your homes, here's your farms. It would have taken it.

Cain: Did it bring the community together?

Gillespie: Well, I'd say yes, which I feel, as a whole, that we are together, but it really united us stronger in that one effort to oppose.

Cain: I went down and took some pictures of the quilt.

Gillespie: Did you?

Cain: That's amazing.

Gillespie: Yeah. That took to Sandy Mush School.

Cain: Yes.

Gillespie: That's some great needlework.

Cain: Well, it's a work from the heart, too.

Gillespie: Yes. That's true.

Cain: That's what comes through, because, yes, the women are great sewers, but what they put into it was more than just their talent with a needle.

Gillespie: Yes, yes. I'm going to put in something here that you might want to take out. I don't know. And you might not. But I do have a concern that our girls and young married couples are failing to pick up on some things as far as cooking, canning, freezing that our older mothers and wives did, because of the opportunity of jobs in fast food restaurants and better incomes. They said, "We won't never need this" but suppose something comes along? They are not going to know how to cook or to can or to do, we'll say, the necessities of the house.

Cain: I mean that's part of why we are talking, because I am interested in that, because that's part of the

change.

Gillespie: And I am very concerned about that.

Cain: Even if your power never went out. Even if the year 2000 computer bug didn't shut things down, is there a value in working a garden.

Gillespie: Certainly.

Cain: Canning. I guess I'm answering my own question, being close to the land.

Gillespie: Yessir. Yes sir! My wife doesn't like to work in the dirt.

Cain: Ha.

Gillespie: But here's the thing about it. If I'll make a garden, she'll set up to 12 or 1 or 2 o'clock, as late as 2 o'clock in the morning, canning or freezing or preserving, whatever it takes to take care of that food. At the present, we could live for a while on off of the canned shelf. But folks that almost go to the grocery store daily, never keep a supply or any storage supply.

Cain: When you set a table for company, your wife can serve them some of the food that has come from your own hand.

Gillespie: Sure. Why, we had 23 people in our home on Sunday. Now that's unusual, but that was because of a wedding, and some folks came from Virginia and so forth and so on. Along with getting some stuff, you know, brought in, we had fresh corn and fresh beans and tomatoes and, you know, my wife, she can set a good table really without going to the grocery store. And here's another thing: baking. Our daughter is an excellent cook, and she bakes for weddings. She bakes for birthdays. All of that, plus she's a good secretary. She was taught as a little girl to do some of these things. At 12 years old, my third child was born, and guess who did the washing, of course we had an automatic washer, but who did the washing and enough of the preparing of meals for two days? She did it at 12 years old. Can you see what I'm saying, that it's all necessary. Computers are wonderful but

Cain: Setting a good table, and that covers a whole lot, is really part of traditional values.

Gillespie: Sure.

Cain: That you pass on to your children.

Gillespie: Sure.

Cain: But that other children are losing.

Gillespie: Well, I don't know whether you should put this in the tape or not. Charles' wife and our daughter can cook and bake and feed a family. Johathan's wife couldn't. She's about 22 years old and really doesn't have an interest in learning to cook and freeze and to can and whatever.

Cain: I look at the people I know, and the ones that aren't that way, that don't have these talents, it doesn't make them less of a person.

Gillespie: Oh no.

Cain: But they are also missing out on something, I think.

Gillespie: I have a cousin who has a wife who is a registered nurse, very likable, very intelligent young lady, and I like to tease her that I'm going to teach her or have her mother-in-law to teach her to can and to freeze and to cook, and it's a joke to her. But suppose something did happen, what would she do? Really. It's a concern of mine, and I even mentioned in church: Mothers, teach your daughters to do housework, to cook, because, they get married with the idea, "We are going to eat out all the time," but finances and time and so forth is not going to allow that to happen all the time.

Cain: Do you want the boys to learn how to cook, too?

Gillespie: Well, your youngest grandson. We only have two grandsons, 14 and 16, but the youngest one can do fairly good. But the other one doesn't have that much interest in cooking. Now I don't have an interest in cooking. I should, but I don't. I've always tried to work hard outside, and my wife takes care of all the inside. She takes care of all of our bills, everything financially. She keeps all the records, pays all the bills, see. That's sort of how we do it.

Cain: A division of labor. An awful lot has been written about mountain people, southern Appalachia, that is "interesting" should I say. One of the images is of the family being ruled by the patriarch. The man is the absolute boss. Is that myth? Is that.

Gillespie: No.

Cain: Is that sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Gillespie: It would be different in some families. I'm going to say it like this. He should be the head of the house but not a dictator. There is a difference in a dictator and leadership. Hitler was a dictator.

Cain: Right.

Gillespie: Our president should be a leader.

Cain: The question is what direction is he leading.

Gillespie: Yeah, in the wrong direction, is he leading, but you know what I'm talking about.

Cain: Sure.

Gillespie: The father, the husband, should be a leader, should be an example of the right ways of life. As far as communication is concerned, education, Christianity, I think that is really the biblical meaning of the man being the head of the house.

Cain: With more wives working, with women's liberation, things change sometimes.

Gillespie: Yes. Women's liberation, as far as the way they look at it, I disagree with, because they say we should be able to be in the Armed Forces. We should be able to be airplane pilots. We should be able to do some things that I really feel that is really made for men, I really do. I think the female is just as valuable in the sight of the Lord as the male, and she is a helper, and we are to love her as Christ loved the Church and, if its necessary, give our life for her.

Cain: Your view, as you've expressed it. Would this be fairly typical of the people you know in this community?

Gillespie: Yes, even though we have some disagreements sometimes and whether I should listen to that fellow or not. Some of the wives do, you know.

Cain: I know some women who would take you to the woodshed for what you are saying.

Gillespie: Yes. Yessir. You know, if that man loves his wife and if he's got real down to earth judgment and concern, I think his judgment, because the Lord has placed him in leadership, needs to be listened to, disagreed with a times, but in a respectable manner. Let me say it like this: My wife and myself disagree sometimes, but we certainly love each other, respect each other's viewpoints. If we disagree, she tells me her viewpoint, I tell her my viewpoints, and we don't have no fights over it. Sometimes, we have to use the term give and take. You see men are made different from women, and we need to know that. They're, as a rule, they're made masculine stronger, and again, I think, we have the responsibility for providing for our family as much as possible, more so than the women.

Cain: Okay. I want to talk a little about attitudes and values. If someone was described to you as a good liver, what would that mean to you?

Gillespie: Well, to me, it would mean that he provides well for his family. He works hard. He manages well. He spends his money wisely. If he's a good liver, he's gonna, have to spend his money fairly wisely, or he won't be a good liver long.

Cain: It doesn't mean that he's rich. It just means that he does well with what he has.

Gillespie: That's right. He does well with what he has. Then there is another side of that, a good liver would be, from a Christian viewpoint. He might do well financially but not have any interest in Christianity at all. That is a mistake. See: Because we are going to be here for a little while, and we're moving out, moving out. And we need to value things from an eternal viewpoint more than we do many times.

Cain: I'm going to ask another question that can be answered in a number of different ways.

Gillespie: Okay.

Cain: The first way, how do you measure the worth of someone?

Gillespie: How do I measure the worth of someone? Really, by how they conduct themselves. The attitude toward other people. Let's start with the family. You know, if a person doesn't regard and respect and have a concern for his family, that doesn't speak well at all. Then, he has a concern for his community again. All the way from family, community, church, county, state, nation, world. Really. Sometimes we say, what happens to other parts of the world doesn't affect me. It might not immediately, but eventually it does affect us, I feel. I don't know that I gave you the best answer.

Cain: There wasn't a best answer. The answer was how you saw it. It is, who is my neighbor? Who is my brother?

Gillespie: Well, the Lord asked that to the fellow that, of course, you know the story.

Cain: Oh sure.

Gillespie: You know the story. Really a neighbor is a person — I'm going to describe it two ways ~ a neighbor is a person that helps other people in need. He is a neighbor whether, really, they were his friend or not, but if they have need and he helps them — and I'm going to use the term he, he or she — he helps them because they have a need. That is really being a neighbor.

Cain: Is it your view that the people of Sandy Mush by and large are more neighborly than oh, say, the people of Asheville? Is that a community value?

Gillespie: I think it is.

Cain: I don't mean to set comparisons as much, as within the community itself.

Gillespie: I think so. This is what you really, you have a concern with things changing. As newcomers come, and I'm not making that any reflection toward you, but as newcomers come from New York or whereever they might come from, they haven't been raised in an environment like, neighborly, like Sandy Mush. See, when I was 18 years old. Let me back up. When I was 18 years old, I knew almost everything on Sandy Mush, everything on North Creek, almost everything on South Turkey Creek, most of 'em on Newfound. I went to a school that there was about 600 in, and I knew about almost every high school student, many of the grammar grade students, because, but as time moved along and other people moved in and I grew older, I lost out.

Cain: I am moving here. I will have to prove myself. I know what my attitude is, and I moved here partly for the mountains, because they are beautiful, and I wanted a place that my children could come to and my grandchildren that would be a refuge.

Gillespie: I understand. Thank you.

Cain: A place that I could hand down to them. But I also wanted a place where there are people I liked and that I could be with, and that's why I chose here. But I also look at some of the professional people who have moved out who don't even have a mailbox by their house. They have a Post Office box.

Gillespie: Uh huh.

Cain: And the only people they talk to are people like themselves. And they are in Sandy Mush but not of Sandy Mush.

Gillespie: I understand what you are saying.

Cain: And if that happens too much, what's the future of Sandy Mush?

Gillespie: In years to come, it will decline as far as a community of. You know, it will take a long time because there are going to be, I'm going to use the word, some youth, some kids, some young people, ah (tape end)

(Tape l.SideB)

Gillespie: ... and it might be helpful to you. It might not.

Cain: Okay. Well, could I, just for a few.

Gillespie: Now that's unusual. That shouldn't be in there. That shouldn't be in there. The man who owned the farm next door to us. He has a picture in there of tobacco. It's not only been in that one. It's been in another one. An old farmer. And let me say something about him, just not on tape.

(Tape off)

Gillespie:... friend who lived, his farm joined ours. He's deceased the last several years. But he was a man that you could of trusted with your billfold, house key, your automobile, your tractor.

Cain: He wasn't lettered.

Gillespie: No sir.

Cain: But it didn't affect his quality as a human being.

Gillespie: No sir. He could not read a book. He could sign his name. He could count money. But that was pretty much the extent of his education. He picked up on driving a tractor or anything very quick. He was a good farmer. He also did some demonstrations with crops with the extension office. Did a good job. Very reliable. Very trustworthy.

Cain: You mentioned trading days. I don't know what word you used, but it was an old system that, if you worked a day for a person, he'd work a day for you.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: Or you'd send a kid over to

Gillespie: Yes, reimburse him.

Cain: And there was a term for it that I forgot.

Gillespie: I use the term swapping work.

Cain: Swapping work, right.

Gillespie: Now, he and I did not keep records. I helped him, and he helped me, and if I helped him more or he helped me more, we didn't say, now, I helped you 40 hours and you helped me 30 or 20 or 35. We just swapped work and got the job done and we didn't say I owe you or you owe me.

Cain: But at the end of the day, not a day, but at the end of time.

Gillespie: At the end of the year, right.

Cain: Was it pretty balanced? I mean, did you try and

Gillespie: Well yes, as a rule, you know. There would be certain weeks or certain crops or certain times that one would do more for the other than the other did, but overall.

Cain: Over time.

Gillespie: It would sort of balance out. At least, that was the way I felt about it. My wife and myself got married in May of '54.1 moved into our cousin's house up here, the one that I said our great grandfather was building when the Civil War came up. He let me live in that house for six-and-a-half years, did not charge me a penny. The house was in poor condition, but we had nowhere to live, and I counted that of great benefit. Of course I fed some cattle for him in winter months. I helped some with the hay. I tried to do some things.

Cain: You fixed up the house some?

Gillespie: Nothing more than put running water in it. That's the only thing. When we were first married and even for two or three year, we had to carry the water. Of course we cooked with wood. We heated with wood. We had no indoor plumbing. Everything was like it was. The only thing we had was our lights and our refrigerator and iron, very minimal convenience.

Cain: Tell me about your old homeplace.

Gillespie: My grandfather had the house built in, I believe. 1912, and.

Cain: Was it frame?

Gillespie: Oh yes, it was a framed house. I believe in 1912. He lived and raised his family there and died there. He died at home.

Cain: You were raised there?

Gillespie: I was raised there in that house, lived there 'till I was married at 20 years old. Then my dad and my uncle lived there until they got really to the point they needed some help. So then it's just been deserted for several years. Just not been used for anything but storage and has not been kept up. In their younger days, I might add, they grew up with a wagon and team. They hauled potatoes or apples or whatever to Asheville with a wagon team, tan bark, which I got when you cut a tree at the right time of the year, and you'd peal that, and they'd haul it to Asheville to the tannery. And I don't really know the process, but they called it tan bark. They sold those potatoes probably for 50 cents a bushel and apples probably for 50 cents a bushel, and my uncle said he had rode the wagon to town when it was so cold that the river was froze over. He would walk up the hill.

Cain: French Broad?

Gillespie: French Broad would be froze over. He'd walk up the hill and ride his team, and get to the top of the hill, and he'd ride the wagon down the hill, you know, and he'd walk up the hill and give it to you that much less weight. Also, let's see.

Cain: The old homeplace, two story?

Gillespie: Yes. Yes. Two-story house.

Cain: One front door?

Gillespie: Had a front door, a kitchen door. We'll say it had three outside doors. That would be a good way to express it. We never kept the door locked. When I was a young fellow before I was married, when I came home, whatever door I came to, I just walked in.

Cain: Was there a door in the center of the front?

Gillespie: Yes, yes.

Cain: And as you were going in the door, on the left-hand side would be what room?

Gillespie: Would be the living room. And the right-hand side would be a bedroom. Straight in front of the door would be a stairway going upstairs. There were two bedrooms upstairs. One bedroom down stairs. A living room, a dining room, and a kitchen. That was it.

Cain: Was it one-room deep with a kitchen-ell.

Gillespie: Yes, you made a good expression. The kitchen was just an ell.

Cain: It's called an "I" house, and they've made interesting studies of them. The chimneys.

Gillespie: It had a chimney for the living room and a chimney for the kitchen.

Cain: On the ends or would it be in the center.

Gillespie: No. The one in the kitchen was not built from the ground up. It was a hanging flue from the ceiling. You know, the cook stove (inaudible). The chimney for the living room was built, you know, from the ground up. It was in the center, on the outside, but you know what I mean when I say the center of the living

room. Of course we only had a spring for water. Electricity came to the community where we lived after World War II, in the fall of '45, if I remember correctly, in the fall of '45. Until then, electricity was down the road about seven-tenths of a mile, but from there on to the head of the creek, no electricity.

Cain: Head of Turkey Creek?

Gillespie: That's right. Head of Turkey Creek. No electricity.

Cain: You have good memories of that house.

Gillespie: Yessir. I mean I was born there and lived there until I was 20 years old. I've never lived anywhere but on this particular farm, and the house I was raised in, the house we lived in six-and-a-half years of after we were first married, and then we've been here since 1960.

Cain: If you could live anywhere, anywhere in the world, where would you want to be?

Gillespie: Oh I don't, of course my wife would answer that and she would say here. (Laugh) But really, I would like to be able to travel some, like out west, Southwest, northwest. But I don't know. See, I've never lived anywhere but here, and this is in my system. And I think we have as good a community and as good a place as anywhere. The reason I'm saying, we have folks, a couple from Colorado who live just across the creek. We have some folks from Ohio that have moved here. If they didn't like it, why would they come from Colorado and Ohio and other states?

Cain: Of course there's all kinds of folks that move down to Florida, too, and I wouldn't consider Florida to be where I would want to move.

Gillespie: No, I wouldn't want to go to Florida. I wouldn't want to go to Florida, at all!

Cain: Just a couple more things. You've been very, very helpful. There's a lot of stereotypes of mountaineers, southern Appalachia, anything from "Beverly Hillbillies" to "Deliverance." I was talking with Burder Reeves' younger daughter Robin, who helps run the computer system as Mission-St. Jos. Very, very smart young woman, but she says almost every day someone is putting her down or thinking she's got to be dumb because she's from Madison County, she's from the mountains.

Gillespie: Well, those folks are the ones that are dumb.

Cain: I understand that.

Gillespie: They are dumb, not her. Listen, her father was the best buddy I had in school from the second grade until we finished high school. Burder Reeves was my buddy, my best friend. Bill Duckett was also a friend, and we graduated together. I know some folks.

Cain: That attitude exists.

Gillespie: Yes, it does exist, but I don't know how to encounter it best or to reflect back. Maybe because she's from Madison County, they call her dumb. Is that what you really?

Cain: Yeah. It's not just Madison County, and Betty is really sensitive, being a commissioner, about Madison County versus Buncombe County, like that's the hicksville, the end of the world.

Gillespie: No, they tell me that Madison County many, many years ago was actually part of Buncombe County.

Cain: It was.

Gillespie: And so, some of the best people I know are Madison County people.

Cain: The point, though, is that, from what outsiders see or misperceive. And to a certain extent. I was reading some histories of people in Chicago. And sort of everyone from the south that went to Chicago back in the 40s and 50s to work was a hillbilly and was dumb, sort of degenerate and uneducated, and some of that persists in different ways, and I know there are all these stereotypes of mountain people, too.

Gillespie: Uh huh.

Cain: And it just happened to be that is was Madison County, and some people in Asheville have that in their mind that that was the end of the earth.

Gillespie: Well I tell you, if you could talk to some of the fellows in Michigan that had good positions in the car factories, or going to Illinois concerning that Caterpiller, I'd say some of those fellows, if they'd give you an honest answer, would say some of the best workers we had, came from the south. Not the most skilled, possibly, but the most reliable, dependable, hardworking people. You see, we speak a little different. The folks from Virginia who came for the wedding, you know, their accent is different from ours, and some folks from the south talk a little slower, drawl. I understand that. But what I look at is that person that I can depend on, that I can rely on, that I can give my billfold to. And I have some fellows like that. And that is the kind of fellow that I say, he or she is a quality person.

Cain: Two more things and we'll wrap it up. I heard from several people that Sandy Mush used to be a pretty

rough place.

Gillespie: I would agree.

Cain: Tell me a little about that. Not names or anything.

Gillespie: The reason I agree, because, as a young Christian, I tried to help a lot of those fellows that drank and fought, and I buried some of those fellows. I helped some of those fellows. Some of them are in church today that used to be heavy drinkers. And some of them are in the cemetery, and some of them have moved out. And it was rough, you know. It was nothing unusual to ride along the road and the side would be full of beer cans, and you'd see 'em passed out here and there, and I'd use the expression like lizards. In some cases, some of the men were disrespectful to church buildings or church property in the sense that, when service wasn't going on, maybe they hung out around the church and drank and whatever, which, they wasn't aware of it, but was still disrespectful. It was. It certainly was. And I want to say this, that I've had a deeper concern and I have tried harder to win the fellow that drinks heavy and tell him there is a better lifestyle, there is a better way to live than to spend his money on drinking, and his family needs it, and it's damaging to his health. It causes him to disrespect people and property that he would not if he wasn't drinking heavy. So.

Cain: Several other people have told me that, but that it seems to have kind of mellowed some.

Gillespie: It has. It has. Well I think, I think I stated it, truly.

Cain: Some of them grew up. Some of them died. Some of them moved away.

Gillespie: That's right. That's true. That is true. And I try to take them as I come to them, and try to help them and say, there is a better way of life than this. And I don't say that boastfully, but the Lord just put it on my heart to try to help that kind of people. And I don't know whether you want to put this in the tape or not, but my dad is a heavy drinker, and it broke my heart so much for him to drink because, when he was drinking heavy, he was not the same father, not the same man.

Cain: It can break a family or sometimes you can rise and find strength in the need.

Gillespie: His liquor bill was the greatest bill he had, the greatest expense that he had. Now we had food, and we had clothes, but we didn't get some other things that we needed desperately because of that. We didn't get the respect and the care and whatever, concern, that we really needed. And I think somehow it had the right bearing on me, but if I never become a Christian, I would have never been a drinker.

Cain: Woops.

Gillespie: I never would have been a drinker, because it broke my heart so bad for my dad to drink. Maybe I should rephrase it. Alcohol would not be my problem. It hurt me so bad. He started out as a young fellow, so young that he had to get older boys or men to get it for him, and it grew on him and it grew on him. And when he was 70 years old, the doctor said you body is as old as a 90-year-old man. He came to a place where they drank heavy every day. Now I don't know how you feel about drinking.

Cain: I've been very lucky, and my family has been very lucky.

Gillespie: Well, good.

Cain: My father had a martini in the evening. If I had one drink of hard liquor a month, that would be a lot. I will have a glass of wine.

Gillespie: That's not bad. But see, a lot of these fellows, they spent their tobacco crop, drank it up. I know a man that would work hard all year, make a tobacco crop, sell it, and he would not stop, so to speak, until it was all gone. And his family, mistreated his family.

Cain: The other thing too is, they grew some marijuana in the hollows.

Gillespie: Well, I knew nothing about drugs when I went to school. I graduated in '52 from high school. I didn't even know, period, that there were drugs. As far as the marijuana, that is a recent thing.

Cain: I understand.

Gillespie: Very recent thing.

Cain: I'm not, the man I bought from used to raise crops.

Gillespie: Uh huh.

Cain: And I hear of other, again, probably more 10 years ago than now.

Gillespie: Uh huh.

Cain: And they have all those helicopters that fly over all the time looking.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: Part of that is the economy.

Gillespie: Well, yes. That's the easy way to make money. The original family and bread winner years ago said I believe in just trying to feed my family by work, not by, we'll say, by growing marijuana. They would

have been young fellows that would have done that, I'm sure that the average.

Cain: But they were, and again I'm not going to mention any names, talking to a fellow, when he was young, ran a still for a while.

Gillespie: Yeah, yeah.

Cain: And part of it was the thrill, and part of it was the money.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: Because if you wanted more than you could grow, if you wanted some things, kids didn't always know any better.

Gillespie: Well, as I said, my father was a heavy drinker and evidently, when he was a young man, was involved also in making some.

Cain: Ah, okay.

Gillespie: And numbers of other people on both sides of my family, evidently, was involved in that some, too, but somehow it just really.

Cain: How did you get the call?

Gillespie: To the ministry?

Cain: Yes.

Gillespie: Well, really, I become a Christian at 20 years old, and the Lord really, really changed my life. And immediately I attained a great love to the Bible, and I spend hours studying it. I'd stay up to midnight, read, study, and I use the word absorb, soak it in like a sponge.

Cain: Okay.

Gillespie: And the Lord blessed me with that, and then he also gave me a real desire to try to help people, win people to the Lord, see their life change from immorality, you know, if people were sexually wild, you know, I didn't reject them. I objected to what they were doing, but I didn't discard 'em in the sense that you are nobody. But you know, that's not really the way to live. Don't sell your body. Don't father kids out of wedlock because those kids are going to grow up and have a lot of hardships, you know. And that was done. It's always been done. You know, father some kids and leaving their mother or grandparents to raise them. But really, back to the call. I just felt a burden on my heart to become a minister, and it was slow progress, and I don't have any education as far as seminary or college. I have none. Really, I have commentaries. I read them. I get a lot of information from them. I get a lot just from the Lord through the Scripture and the Holy Spirit speaking in my heart. Really, the Bible is the book of all books. Absolutely the book of all books. It doesn't only tell us about creation, but it tells us about the way of life, about eternity. It tells us about the wages of sin is death, and on and on. Yes, it tells us all the things we need to, that are necessary for life.

Cain: Last question or group of questions and I'll turn this off.

Gillespie: Okay.

Cain: If you look at the changes ~ we're talking about the Sandy Mush community.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: Over the last 10 or 20 or 30 years, whatever time frame you want to look at. There have been some things that have been gains, some benefits. There's also been some losses. I mean I can think of some tangible benefits. Bill Duckett had a bypass.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: Came through great.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: Is back to work. Has a life that he wouldn't have had otherwise.

Gillespie: That's true.

Cain: A road can let you get to market.

Gillespie: Yes.

Cain: But it can also bring troubles.

Gillespie: Let me mention. I knew the first fellow that had heart bypass at Mission Hospital, and it was from Sandy Mush, Doyle Ball was the first person that had heart bypass at Mission Hospital.

Cain: That's where the little green log cabin is?

Gillespie: Yes, yes. He lived in it at that time. His wife lives in a trailer at present. And I have been a friend for years of the family. In fact I helped conduct his funeral. He had a daughter who was not normal. And I conducted her funeral. I've conducted lots of funerals.

Cain: Would you rather do baptisms?

Gillespie: Well, yes. I'd rather do a funeral than a wedding though. I've got a wedding coming up the first week in September, but I'd rather do a funeral than a wedding. They can't talk back, (laughter). At the wedding, they will promise you "I do," but they don't do that, and that person you're talking over at the funeral, he or she doesn't say anything. They don't answer you, and you try to be as fair and as honest as you can about their past life, the kind of person that they were. And always I try to say as many good things as I can. And if I can't say good things, I try to avoid saying bad things.

Cain: Because at that point what you're really doing is talking to the people that are there and have to cope with that.

Gillespie: That's true. See I'm talking to the living. I always try to warn folks. Somewhere in what I have to say, I try to warn folks. I try to encourage folks. Don't go the wrong path. Don't take the wrong path. You know, just don't follow the wrong path.

Cain: The question was, there have been some benefits, you've gained some things and lost some things. How do you see the balance?

Gillespie: You mentioned the roads. The roads in Sandy Mush were all gravel until recent years. I don't recall the year that Big Sandy was paved, but it has helped the community in the way of transportation, in the way of value of the property. I would say it has actually brought some folks to the community that might not have come, possibly.

Cain: Some of the old values, some of the things that you value, the neighborliness, it was still there for your barn in a big way, and that was remarkable, but that was the exception, no longer the norm, although people will still help each other.

Gillespie: They don't swap work as a community like they used to, and I don't know, unless it's. The younger boys and girls, as quick as they get out of high school, they either go on to school or they get a job, and they're no more available for putting up hay or putting up tobacco, or whatever, and we've come to a place where we have to be more hiring migrants. And as the older people get disabled or deceased, I can see a great change in the community like that.

Cain: You say that with a sadness.

Gillespie: Yes, yes I do. Yes, I do, because, again, and I believe you will be a good neighbor, but there's a number of people who've moved on Sugar Creek Road that I don't know, that maybe I should have visited, but I haven't, that to my knowledge, has no interest, seemingly, in the community as the community is today. And some of them may be like they said about Burder Reeves' daughter, call us dumb. But you know, if you are in the ditch, all of our folks will help you out. Let me say it like that. They'll all help you out if you are in the ditch, and I don't just mean with your automobile.

Cain: It's a metaphor.

Gillespie: That's right.

Cain: That's a good note to stop on.

Gillespie: I've not answered some of those maybe in the best way. I really didn't know how.

Cain: You have, really. You really have.

Gillespie: Well, thank you.

(tape off)

Gillespie: ...does it in the creek. Baptize in the creek. Jones Valley does baptize in the creek. I'm not sure about the Methodist people. I think also Ebeneezer would. Now Beulah has just a little baptismal pool that they fill up.

Cain: That's high enough up the stream, there isn't much of a stream there.

Gillespie: They used to pond up the creek, baptize, turn it loose, but that water, you know, was pretty cool. The closer to the mountains you get, the cooler the water. If you've got a pool in which you can catch it and let the sun and the temperature warm it up, it helps. That's one of the traditions.

Cain: That's full immersion.

Gillespie: Yes it is. The Methodists do full immersion, too.

Cain: At what age, or can it be any?

Gillespie: Well, we don't put an age on it. If we are talking with that child, we try to be very simple and very careful not to mislead them, because a child is easily misled. Are you aware that you need a savior personally? Do you need, let me rephrase that. Are you old enough to know right from wrong, you see? By being old enough to know right from wrong, are you aware that, by nature, that you have a sinful nature? We are all born with a sinful nature. And do you want to ask the Lord to forgive you of anything that you've said or done, or all

the things that you have said and done, to forgive you and become your savior, being saved by faith, by grace through faith, let me rephrase that? By grace through faith, and that's really the terms of salvation. Grace. Grace was my message last Sunday at church. Grace.

Cain: A gift, not earned.

Gillespie: That's right. Thank you. And I really have that on my heart all week, and I don't know that I delivered it as well as it could be, but I read a number of scriptures, made a number of comments about grace and faith, not of works. We are not only saved by grace, you know, but we really receive grace in the sense of having food and clothing and transportation and all the blessings. That's a part of grace. You know, none of us can walk up before the Lord, so to speak in our heart, and say, now, I've been good enough to deserve all that you've ever given me. I haven't. I haven't, (end)

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